Domestic IT market in growth phase: IDC

The India domestic IT market is into a growth phase and 2005
witnessed huge traction, according to IDC.

Coming out of a slowdown in 2003, the industry entered the
next business cycle showing consistent growth in 2004 and 2005. IDC predicts the
growth story to continue in 2006 keeping 'the fastest growing IT market in AP
region' crown for India intact. The India domestic IT market is estimated to
grow at 19% in 2006 over 2005.

"In 2003, the market was just out of a slowdown and it
was a phase when strategic choices were made and trends were at the tipping
point. 2004 and beyond was predicted to be a period of operationalising these
strategic decisions and trends were predicted to enter the mainstream. Year 2006
will see some of these key trends witnessing further traction and will be
governed by the underlying theses of mobility, convergence and infrastructure
management", commented Kapil Dev Singh, country manager, IDC (India)
Limited.

"As per IDC's 2004 and 2005 predictions, the industry
convergence, consolidation and realignment was around two themes — dynamic IT
in the enterprise space and the advent and increasing proliferation of digital
devices in the consumer space. These themes will further get defined and
enhanced with increasing penetration of IT in households and growing depth in
the enterprise segment," Singh added.

He further stated, "The ecosystem in terms of PC
adoption, broadband usage and increasing relevance of IT to small enterprises
will fuel growth and increasing integration of IT with business in enterprises
will drive depth."

IDC has predicted India to continue to be the fastest growing
domestic IT market in the AP region, to continue to grow at 19% in 2006 with the
other Asian giant China growing at 12%; Servers, the fundamental building-block
of IT infrastructure to cross 100,000 shipments in 2006: Need to deliver higher
performance across Business Functions and Consolidation to pave the road to
Dynamic IT; Outsourcing Services to outgrow Technology Product Services
(standalone) in 2006: To contribute largest chunk of 24% of Indian IT Services
market; Anytime, Anywhere Information Availability to drive Shift towards
Policy-based Security Management and Administration in 2006, lay roadmap for
Federated Security environments and said 2006 will be the year of the digital
home revolution.

It also predicted that unrestricted IP Telephony will boost IP-PBX shipments
to over 25% of PBX line shipments by end-2006, but low PSTN tariffs will
constrain VoIP usage; Verticals Orientation to Speed up Internal Organisational
Restructuring and Change Go-To-Market Strategies of IT Vendors:
Industry-specific Solutions to be major driver of corporate IT Spending in 2006
and beyond; Application Integration, Consolidation

with Business Analytics will gain momentum in 2006; Cost no more the key factor
in Color Adoption.